Our Lady of Vilnius Roman Catholic Church stands on Broome Street in Manhattan at the Entrance to the Holland Tunnel. It stood there before the tunnel was built. Cardinal Egan locked it on February 26, 2007.

This is our body.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Today that famously anti-Catholic newspaper, the New York Times, published an op-ed piece by Kenneth J. Wolfe titled Latin Mass Appeal. The piece recounts the origins of the Mass that we currently attend, surmises that some of the ills that plague the church today spring from this liturgy and cites evidence that the Latin Mass is the wave of the future.

Well, this scholarly excursion goes a long way towards explaining the archdiocese' press releases regarding the closure of Our Lady of Vilnius. I advise everyone to follow these links. It will help to explain the past and prepare for the future.

Friday, November 27, 2009

Yesterday news broke on the release of a 700-page report, prepared by a group appointed by the Irish government and called the Commission of Investigation Into the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin. The investigation concluded that the police and the Roman Catholic hierarchy colluded for decades to conceal cases of child abuse by priests of the Archdiocese of Dublin. The NY Times presented the story in this morning's edition with a piece titled "Report Says Irish Bishops and Police Hid Abuse".

Today I received e-mail from a fellow Our Lady of Vilnius parishioner regarding the case of St. George's Church in Shenandoah, PA. St. George's is the oldest Lithuanian church in the United States. My fellow parishioner said:

" A page and a half in Lithuanian Newspaper Draugas (Chicago) details the impending shameful destruction of St. George's church in Shenandoah PA Church. It is the oldest Lithuanian Church and parish in the USA. The diocese of Allentown employed virtually identical formula that was used to liquidate OLV. "

Saturday, November 21, 2009

"As by miracle thou didst restore me to health in my childhood when, offered by my weeping mother to thy protection,I raised my dead eyelids, and could straightway walk to the threshold of thy shrine to thank God for the life returned me"

from "Pan Tadeusz" by Adam Mickiewicz

Tomorrow, November 22, the parishioners of Our Lady of Vilnius will celebrate the feast of our Patroness. Those that can will gather, first at St. Patrick's Cathedral, later on the steps of our beloved church on Broome Street.

Though we are apart, we will always be together in Christ and in the immaculate heart of our Patron and Protector, the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Those of us who have tussled with Egan can certainly learn something from a woman who took on Moses. Robert Moses, that is. We all should read "WRESTLING WITH MOSES" by Anthony Flint.

Subtitled "How Jane Jacobs Took On New York’s Master Builder and Transformed the American City," this book was reviewed by Dwight Garner of the New York Times on August 4th of this year in a piece titled When David Fought Goliath in Washington Square Park. The book details a vision that Moses had to build a four-lane highway through the middle of Washington Square Park, raze 14 blocks in the heart of Greenwich Village run a 10-lane elevated superhighway, to be called the Lower Manhattan Expressway, through SoHo, Little Italy, Chinatown and the Lower East Side. Thank God and all His helpers that this never came to pass!

Mr. Moses blogs of Thursday's news that Pfizer is withdrawing from its plan to develop a swathe of New London, CT; a plan that was resisted until 5 justices of the US Supreme Court ruled in Pfizer's favor. (see NY Times story of Nov. 12, Pfizer to Leave City That Won Land-Use Case)

dotCommonweal forum participant Patrick Molloy references Flint's book in his comment to the above post and puts it in a context very local to Our Lady of Vilnius, saying:

"The Jane Jacobs vs Robert Moses story is the subject of a recent well received book:

Enter “La Mountain” in the search box to learn about the priest [Father Gerard La Mountain] and the small parish [of the Church of the Most Holy Crucifix, now the Chapel of San Lorenzo Ruiz] that were at the center of the battle against the Lower Manhattan Expressway favored by Moses.

The page 172 entry mentions a tree planted by Jane Jacobs in front of the church. Here it is, still the only tree on the block:

Parishioners from Our Lady of Vilnius, the Lithuanian parish whose closure a while back occasioned some comments here, were also involved." [My emphasis]

If anyone associated with Our Lady of Vilnius can reminisce about this period in Village history, please don't hesitate to contact me.